‘Darling!’ Mum greeted me at the door, arms outstretched, a kiss on the cheek that was surely genuine. ‘And you must be Sebastian.’ She extended her hand to him with the loveliest of smiles, eyes twinkling, absolutely nothing betraying what she might really be thinking, and actually, perhaps wasn’t, by now. My mother can persuade herself of all sorts of things. She also has charm and as she led us through the sparkling, flower-filled, music-humming house, French windows flung wide to the sweeping lawns and river beyond – all of which said: This is who we are, Sebastian; cultured, prosperous, intelligent people – everything about her own smiling demeanour as she introduced him joyfully to the assembled relatives said: And this is my prospective son-in-law. Aren’t I lucky?
‘You know, Sebastian’s frightfully famous,’ she was telling Aunt Hilda – I noticed we had Hilda from Dad’s side and not cosy, shawl-wearing, toffee-sucking Auntie Doreen from hers: Mum, like most crashing snobs, didn’t have much in her closet to brag about. ‘He’s been written up in The Times and the Telegraph. Apparently he’s the next Howard Hodgkin, and Miles Spender in the FT says he’s Tate Britain’s only hope of having someone genuinely experimental, talented and indigenous.’
I looked at her in awe as Sebastian blinked in surprise. Two weeks ago she wouldn’t have known who Howard Hodgkin was, let alone an art critic called Miles Spender, but, boy, had she done her homework. Once, years ago, when Ginnie had failed rather a lot of O-levels but expressed a vague interest in photography, my mother, within hours, had not only uncovered some friend of a friend with a London studio, but, before Ginnie could blink, had her on a train rattling off to deepest Shoreditch. We learned not to have a vague interest in anything much.
So contemporary art, conceptual in particular, encompassing most English artists from 1960 to the present day would not be a problem for Mum. She’d have it under her belt in no time, bothering librarians in those pre-Internet days to let her look through old copies of The Times, sourcing reviews, charting the career of an up-and-coming artist called Sebastian Montclair and discovering, to her delight, that things were not so bad at all.
‘His grandmother was Lady Louisa Radcliff you know, great friends with one of the Mitford girls,’ she purred to Hilda, whose back straightened visibly. She was in the same over-thin, well-preserved vein as Mum.
‘Was she?’ Sebastian looked stupefied, and so adorable with his long, freshly washed hair and his floral shirt, brown eyes soft amongst these sharp-eyed relatives assembled round our dining table.
‘You didn’t know she was a Lady?’ Mum was astonished.
‘No, the Mitford bit.’
‘Oh, yes. She was in Austria with Unity,’ my mother assured him, as if Unity were a close personal friend. ‘It says so in Debo Devonshire’s letters. And his grandfather,’ she went on importantly, as if Sebastian wasn’t there at all – Ginnie shot me a sympathetic look over the asparagus – ‘was one of the greatest painters of his generation. Just as, one day, Sebastian will be of his!’
‘He was also one of the greatest drinkers,’ Sebastian told her with a laugh. ‘Let’s hope I don’t emulate him on that front!’
Mum was on the point of making her famous face at this, but Dad roared, so she quickly changed her lemon-sucking demeanour to one of a frightfully gay avant-garde hostess and gave a tinkly laugh instead.
‘Oh, I’m quite sure you won’t do that, Sebastian, particularly now you’ve got the little one on the way.’
It was the first reference to the baby – executed in Mum’s typically euphemistic, lower-middle-class way – but she hadn’t meant it snidely. That too had gone from being a shameful secret to a much-lauded triumph. Her friend Angie, who lived down the road at the Manor, told Ginnie that Mum had arrived for bridge the previous week saying: ‘Marvellous news, Angie. Both of my daughters are pregnant. Soon I’ll have three grandchildren – aren’t I lucky?’
‘Oh – and I’ve had a little thought,’ Mummy told us ominously over the lunch table, raising a well-manicured finger. I braced myself. Mum’s little thoughts were generally anything but. ‘More hollandaise, Sebastian? No? It’s home-made? I thought – why not get married in the village church? After all, Ginnie did.’
‘No, Mum,’ I said firmly, glancing at my father for support. He gave me a quick nod. Sebastian had gone a bit pale. ‘I am not waltzing down the aisle six months pregnant like a ship in full sail with a crowd of little attendants behind me.’ In her head, I knew my mother had already chosen the flowers in their bouquets, their silk sashes. ‘We’ve already decided we’re going for a registry office, just family and close friends.’ As her face fell I put her out of her misery. ‘Chelsea,’ I added.
To see it rise again like one of Delia’s soufflés, which she executed so beautifully and was handing around even now with a little green salad, was almost a joy to behold.
‘Oh, yes, Chelsea,’ she purred as Mick Jagger and Bianca and countless other arty but famous folk clearly sprang to mind. She paused a moment in her soufflé-doling and I could see a whole screenplay playing out in her head as I no doubt stood in some dated Ossie Clarke number with a floppy white hat, Sebastian in some terrible, seventies, flared suit beside me.
In the event, I wore a cream lace dress from Warehouse with Ginnie in pale lemon as my bridesmaid, whilst Sebastian looked divine in a biscuit-coloured linen suit and open-necked shirt. My parents were obviously there, Sebastian’s were long dead – but his Aunt Ottoline came, a divorcee who’d been close to Sebastian as he grew up. I took to her at once. Small, round and with shrewd eyes in a tanned, nut-like face, she immediately filled me in on all the gossip in Sebastian’s family – his mother had been pious and a pain, his father, mild but bullied – but she also told me I’d got the pick of the bunch in my new husband, who was a complete honey. How could I not love her instantly?
Apart from that, relatives were thin on the ground and the small throng of people showering us with confetti as we came down the registry office steps, blinking into the sunlight, were either friends of mine from St Martin’s, or Sebastian’s from the art world. To be honest I don’t remember much about anyone in particular, which perhaps speaks volumes about how I felt that day – I was in a complete and perfect bubble with Sebastian.
I remember holding his hand as we stood laughing at each other in the street, passers-by turning to smile at our happiness. And I remember thinking, as the photographer snapped away: surely this is the girl who has everything? Two weeks prior to our marriage Sebastian had held his second one-man show in a prestigious gallery in Cork Street. It had been a resounding success both critically and commercially. The newspapers had called him ‘the cream of his generation’, and the money he’d made would enable us to buy a proper flat – a house, even – and no longer live in an attic. The emotion we’d felt on that day as everyone finally left the gallery and we’d hugged each other with glee, toasting our success with a glass of champagne, was akin to the happiness I felt as I gazed up at my new husband in the street and his eyes, full of love, gazed down. We had everything. We had each other, we had the baby, we had ambition, and we also shared a special bond: something no one else knew about and which was as binding, in its way, as the gold ring on my finger. It only served to bring us closer together; it was another expression of our love. We felt complete.
Despite the bright midday sunshine the photographer wasn’t taking any chances. His camera bulb flashed madly and the young couple caught laughing into the lens and captured in the photographs I later put proudly in a leather-bound album look like any other pair of shiny-eyed newly-weds on their wedding day. Any other young couple who have found each other, are blissfully happy, and can’t quite believe their luck.
To this day I can’t bear to look at them.
CHAPTER FIVE
I was at the kitchen window, elbow deep in suds at the sink, when Ginnie drove into the yard on Wednesday morning in her green Range Rover. Mum was in the passenger seat beside her. Even at this distanc
e I could see that Ginnie had her over-bright face on and was chattering away gaily, exclaiming and pointing at the ducks as one would to a child. Mum, beside her, in a printed summer dress and navy cardigan, looked grim and tight-lipped. She clutched her handbag on her lap and regarded her surroundings suspiciously. I felt my spirits sink into my Ugg boots. As I pulled the plug in the sink, something nasty and slimy, probably a piece of old pasta, wound itself round my finger. My heart, too, it seemed. What had I agreed to? What?
The dogs were clamouring to be let out. Stupidly I opened the back door and they shot out, barking furiously at the car. As I dried my hands on a tea towel, my face, I realized, was already plastered with a replica of my sister’s fixed smile.
‘Hello, there! How lovely!’ I called, determined to get this off to a good start. I went to greet Mum as she attempted to descend from the dizzy heights of the Range Rover passenger seat, which is not designed for elderly women, and not helped by the dogs, jumping up to greet her. Ginnie ran round to help but my mother waved her away furiously and then there was a moment when we all got thoroughly mixed up with the dogs, the car door and her heels sticking in the muddy, cobbled yard. She sorted herself out and made determinedly for the house, accompanied by two barking dogs and two daughters shrieking at them to ‘Be QUIET, can’t you!’
‘Mum! What a treat,’ I gasped breathlessly as I came in after her and shut the marauding dogs out, just about letting Ginnie squeeze in behind me. ‘Did you have a good trip?’
An inane question because she’d only come from Ginnie’s, but I was nervous. My mother wasn’t. Head high, back straight, hair stiffly waved, she kissed me lightly as I lunged, never quite touching my cheek.
‘This is very good of you, Ella,’ she told me, ignoring my prattle. ‘And it won’t be for long, I assure you. Just until the painters have finished redecorating upstairs. You know how I can’t bear the smell, and of course your father couldn’t care less.’
I glanced incredulously at Ginnie. She shrugged sheepishly back.
‘No. Quite,’ I muttered as Mum swept past, spotting Tabitha in the playroom.
‘Hello, darling, how are you?’
‘Oh, hi, Granny.’ Tabitha got up off the sofa to kiss her.
‘Is that the party line?’ I hissed, when she was out of earshot.
‘That’s what she’s telling everyone, yes.’
‘But surely she knows I know?’
‘Well …’ Ginnie scratched her leg uncomfortably.
‘Oh, Ginnie, for heaven’s sake!’
This was so like my family. Everything tucked away under wraps for form’s sake. No feelings vented, no emotions expressed; everything to keep up appearances and save face.
‘Tabitha needs some slippers,’ Mum scolded, coming back into the kitchen. ‘Her feet are freezing. And what on earth is she doing watching television at this time of day? Is she ill?’
‘Oh, no, this is early for Tabs,’ I told her breezily. ‘She doesn’t usually surface before ten. Josh is still in bed. That’s teenagers for you, I’m afraid. And, actually, it’s well documented. They do need more sleep than we do.’
Start as you mean to go on, Ella, I told myself firmly. This is your house. Your rules. Or lack of them.
‘Not in my day they didn’t,’ she said tartly. ‘If you or Ginnie were in bed after nine o’clock I’d pull the covers off!’ Ah, so that’s where my sister had inherited it from.
‘Be my guest,’ I said brightly. ‘Now, Mum. Cup of coffee? Then I’ll take you to the cottage.’ I said it as if installing my mother in one of my holiday lets were the most natural thing in the world.
‘I had a cup at Ginnie’s. And of course she makes it far too strong. What on earth is that chicken doing up there?’
I glanced up to the top of the dresser. ‘Oh, that’s Ladyboy, and he’s not a chicken he’s a bantam. Or she is. She started as a hen but then got feathery legs and a comb so he’s sort of a cockerel now. The others bully her – him – so he comes in here.’
‘How thoroughly unhygienic!’ She shuddered. ‘Where does he go at night?’
‘Oh, outside,’ I lied weakly, obviously not starting as I meant to go on. Ladyboy was often to be found with the dogs in their basket.
‘Well, thank heavens for that.’ She pulled her cardigan protectively round her bony shoulders. Made a disapproving face. ‘I think perhaps I’d like to see the house now,’ she declared, for all the world like a prospective purchaser waiting to be escorted to a property by an estate agent.
I felt my dander rising. Noticed too that Ginnie was keeping very quiet. Guilt, probably. Plus twenty-four hours of the same treatment.
‘Right. Jolly good. Well, I’ll just get the key.’
It wasn’t hard, because it was in my pocket, but it was something to say. I brandished it as if I’d discovered the Holy Grail and we trooped outside. We crossed the yard in silence. Sebastian’s curtains were still drawn in the Granary but Ottoline, his aunt, who’d lived on the farm in one building or another for years, was sitting in a wheel-backed chair on her doorstep in the sunshine. Her legs, in jeans, covered with an apron, were planted firmly astride as she carefully painted her mugs, which were ranged before her on a little table.
‘Good morning!’ she called cheerily, as I waved from a distance. Mum swung round, not having spotted her.
‘Oh. Good morning, Ottoline,’ she said stiffly. Then: ‘Is that woman still here?’ – not bothering to go and greet her properly, and not really bothering to lower her voice. ‘I thought there was some mention of her going to Newlyn? Doing her pottery thing down there?’
‘There was,’ I said evenly. ‘And she went down there for a bit but she didn’t like it. Missed Netherby. And I missed her. I like having her here.’
My mother made one of her faces. ‘Gracious. It really is like a commune, isn’t it?’
It is now, I thought.
‘And Sebastian hasn’t seen fit to move out yet, I suppose?’ She glanced at the Granary.
‘No, he hasn’t,’ I said shortly. ‘Apart from anything else, he’s got nowhere to go.’
‘Well, I don’t see that that’s your problem,’ she snapped.
I just about kept myself in check.
‘Right, here we are,’ I said brightly, as we approached the little stone cottage. I put the key in the latch and pushed open the blue stable door. Inside I’d painted the walls a pale shell-pink, the bare floorboards a white gloss and strewn them with plenty of colourful Kelim rugs which overlapped. All the lamps were on – I’d bought a few new ones in IKEA – and the wood-burner I’d lit that morning, even though it was summer, glowed warmly in the corner. I’d been in here a good couple of hours already and hadn’t needed a key, but I’d wanted her to see that she’d got privacy and security. A pair of creamy sofas fitted snugly, facing each other either side of the stove. Between them on a low table were the newspapers I’d nipped out to buy earlier and, on a whim, Harper’s, which she loved. The glazed door at the far end of the room was open to the tiny garden, its checked curtain fluttering in the breeze.
‘Oh, Ella, it’s sweet!’ enthused Ginnie, genuinely impressed. ‘I haven’t been in here for ages and you’ve done so much. You’ve really made it cosy, hasn’t she, Mummy?’
My mother sniffed, looking around.
‘And you’ve got a few new pieces too,’ Ginnie swept on, sensing frost. She stroked an old chest of drawers, which had a bit of woodworm but was otherwise quite unremarkable, in the corner.
‘Lottie got it for me,’ I told her as we both watched our mother, anxiously. Lottie was my best friend in the village – in the world, come to that – and she dabbled in antiques. ‘She picks up things like this for a song at Kempton and offers them to me first, before she puts them on her stall.’
‘A song is all they’re worth,’ said Mum, coming across and opening a drawer of the chest. It got stuck as she tried to push it back. As Ginnie went to help she almost slapped her hand. Ginnie shrank.
‘I hope she doesn’t overcharge you, Ella. You always were a soft touch.’
‘Yes, I was, wasn’t I?’ I said lightly, feeling myself coming to the boil.
‘Oh, Mummy, do look at the dear little kitchen,’ Ginnie broke in gustily, shooting me an imploring look. ‘It’s got one of those darling little butler sinks you love.’
‘Must you sound like a character in a P. G. Wodehouse novel?’ Mummy enquired as she marched the few paces it took to get around the bar that divided the sitting room from the galley kitchen with its duck-egg-blue cupboards. She pulled out one drawer, then another. Happily they both slid back perfectly.
‘Yes, very nice,’ she said grudgingly. ‘You’ve done it up well, Ella. Although I’d be tempted to take a few of these rugs out of the kitchen area; they’ll only get things spilled on them. And there’s nowhere really to sit and eat, is there? I suppose one could sit at this bar, but I like to get my feet under a proper table. No room, I take it. Ah, well. The view’s pleasant enough and one could always sit outside, I imagine. If it was nice.’
‘One could,’ I agreed. ‘If one was so inclined. And if one didn’t mind seeing the commune from there.’
My mother caught my tone immediately. A muscle twitched in her cheek.
‘It’s very kind of you, darling,’ she said stiffly. I wished for all the world that I hadn’t said it. The mask had slipped instantly and the pain was there for all to see.
‘It’s a pleasure, Mum,’ I said gruffly, wishing we were the sort of family who could hug each other now, when words wouldn’t do. Or even find words. ‘Sorry, I’m being a cow.’ ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m the cow.’ But we weren’t.
There was an awkward pause. ‘Well, I think I’ll be on my way. I’ve got to pick up Araminta from a sleepover,’ Ginnie said breathlessly. She lunged to kiss Mum clumsily, who stood like a rock.
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